


LA Devotee

by underthenorthstar



Series: Tumblr Fics [6]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Cocaine, Drug Use, F/M, Mild Angst, Mild Sexual Content, Modern AU, Panic at the Disco - Freeform, Song fic, Tumblr Prompt, implied trading sex for favors, la devotee, smoking weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:24:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underthenorthstar/pseuds/underthenorthstar
Summary: Based on a Tumblr prompt where we had to take a song and write a fic inspired by it. I chose LA Devotee by Panic at the Disco.





	LA Devotee

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my favourite pieces I've written. Be warned: angst and adult themes ahead.
> 
> TW: mild sexual content, drug use, alcohol use, implied choking, implied trading sex for favours.

He wanted to be a writer.

Screenplays, mostly. Maybe books. He didn't know exactly. He just wanted to get out, to get away from everyone. To do what he loved.

LA, Hollywood. The Land of Dreams. The logical choice. Mother cried. His brothers laughed. 

Bright eyed, eager, thinking he owned the world. Thinking the world owed him. It had cursed him with these damn twisted legs, after all. He was going to make it. He was going to prove everyone wrong. He didn't need his legs to write. 

He was going to be the star that outshone them all.

Some star.

His fridge is empty. The overdue bills are hidden under a half finished manuscript. There are roaches in the bathroom. He sleeps with her tucked under one arm on the dirty, stained mattress. It reeks of sex and sweat and stale weed.

She knows what it's like. She came out here to be an actress. 

She waits tables. 

That's where he saw her. He hadn't eaten in three days. She was on the verge of being fired (she can never be on time, and she's only ever really mostly sober). They looked, and they understood. 

Hello, stranger. This town chewed you up and spit you out too?

She likes wine. He likes whiskey. They both like weed, and often something a little stronger. 

The cocaine is sometimes the only thing that gets him to fully relax. And damn it if the sex isn't mind blowing. He knows it's bad for him, he knows it. She knows it too. But they do it anyways.

It's the nature of this place. 

He could go home. He could pack them up, take her away from this festering hellhole of crushed dreams and people pretending they are something they aren't.

But he won't. He can't. 

She calls it black magic. How it lures you to stay, the bright lights and the slim chance of changing your odds, that tiny hope of making it. The booze and the drugs and the fact that you're dirt poor but you're living your own life. 

You never stop worshiping at the shrine.

Maybe that's why he stays, though. He's living his own life. Not his mother's, or his brothers', or his dead father's. His. It's not what he expected, but it's his.

Beside him, she stirs. A yawn. Warm lips pressing against his, sloppy and half asleep. She tastes like cheap wine. It's his second favourite flavour. 

His hands slide into her underwear. That always wakes her up quickly. He's been awake for a while and craves their morning routine. Wake. Sex. Smoke. Drink. Repeat.

It's rent day, and he needs the distraction. 

He tugs her on top of him, and she takes to the task with enthusiasm. He had always thought he needed to have the control. She proved him wrong when she straddled him in the back of her shitty beat up car. Their second date. 

A whole lifetime ago.

She looks like a goddess like this, face flushed, nails digging into his chest, eyes wide and pupils blown. He can still see his handprints on her throat from a few nights ago, a beautiful purple against her skin. She asked him for them. She likes it rough, calls herself his little rag doll. To be tossed around and used as he wishes. 

He's always more than happy to oblige. 

Today though, it's her turn to use him. She rides him so hard and fast that the exotic dancer living beneath them pounds on the ceiling with her broom handle. He comes to the sound of her screaming for quiet. He doesn't bother to be.

She doesn't either, when he buries his face between her still quaking thighs a moments later. The whole apartment block probably hears her cursing and crying his name. 

They like it like that. 

After, he rolls a joint while she grabs whatever they have left to drink. It's cheap white wine. Not his favourite, but it makes his belly warm. 

They sit on the balcony, watching the sun rise and passing the joint back and forth. It's not much, just something to take the edge off.

"Rent today," she says, chipped red nails stark against the pale of the wine in her glass. There are dark circles under her eyes. Too many midnight shifts. Too many sleepless night, too many little white lines. His nose twitches. He probably looks the same.

"We don't have the money," he says, but he knows she already knows that.  
They never have the money. 

She pats his arm. "I'll take care of it."

She does. Every month. Their greasy landlord likes to rub it in. 

He never asked her to. She simply does, because she knows. She knows they need more time. They aren't ready to admit defeat. So she buys them more. 

He doesn't hate her for it. He hates himself.

He's probably holding her back. A cripple, a failure, unable to hold his own, unable to make a name for himself. He's slowly sinking to the bottom of the hole Sigurd always told him he'd end up in, and he's taking her with him. 

Once, he told her to leave. She slapped him straight across the face, and told him to never say such stupid shit to her. Then they had such angry sex they broke their cheap bedframe. 

And so she stays. He doesn't know why, but she stays and he's grateful.

She drains the last of her wine and crawls into his lap. He kisses the tattoo on the back of her neck. It's supposed to ward off the "evil eye", she told him. Protect her from the bad around here. He doesn't suppose it's done a very good job. This whole city is like one giant curse. 

But, he thinks, as she purrs contentedly and snuggles into his embrace, it's not so bad. He has her. He has freedom. He can still make it. He can still write something people will give a shit about. She can still make her dreams of being on screen come true. 

They can still prove everyone wrong.

After all, they aren't leaving anytime soon. Slaves, both of them. 

She seems to read his mind. She taps the joint in her hand against his glass. "Cheers, babe. To LA, and all her wretched devotees."

He chokes on a laugh. 

"Cheers."


End file.
